


The Man in the Second Row

by lynndyre



Category: Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Priests, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 22:03:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5472275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a piano is played, and Jeeves makes friends with the man hiding in his church.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man in the Second Row

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JuneLoveland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuneLoveland/gifts).



Of the many things Bertie Wooster could be called, inconspicuous was not one of them. Thus it was that Father Jeeves became aware of him within minutes of the beginning of the mass, the first that Bertie had attended since coming to visit his Aunt Dahlia.

Father Jeeves' sermon proceeded uninterrupted. The raiments of his profession were neat, crisp, and pleasingly unadorned. Eccleisiastical wear for ceremony was both more cumbersome and more sartorially distressing, but had at least the benefit of tradition behind its use. Nothing excused the young man in the second row, whose pocket square was a distractingly bright yellow, drawing Jeeves' eyes back to him again and again through the liturgy.

He sang well, for all he should not have been allowed to dress himself. And when the congregation stood to sing, the shafts of coloured light cast a gloriole about his head.

After the service, Jeeves shook hands and spoke with the departing parishioners. He of the yellow pocket square was introduced by his aunt as Bertram Wooster. He shook hands with a bright smile, possibly the most genuine Jeeves had ever received from someone above the age of eight. His hand was warm, his grip firm, and Jeeves expected to see him in the congregation only as a guest.

Father Jeeves certainly did not expect to find him playing music hall songs on the church piano in the middle of Tuesday morning. Nonetheless, he was summoned forth from his office by the strains of something which purported to be the tale of forty-seven ginger headed sailors.

Jeeves cleared his throat, and watched in satisfaction as the young man started where he sat, the seafaring saga abruptly cut off with an undignified yiping noise from the singer.

"Father! Terribly sorry, I didn't know anyone was about. Not the most appropriate harmony for these hallowed halls, but the acoustics give such a jolly good reverberation I couldn't resist."

He had turned, but not risen from the piano bench, and Jeeves crossed to the other side of the instrument, allowing him to resume his place at the keys. Mr Wooster's hands crept across the keyboard with an ease and thoughtlessness that denoted both talent and a lengthy familiarity and practice with the instrument in question. After a few aimless fingerings, he lifted his face again.

"Let me make it up to you!" 

And instead of the discordant noise that had emerged during the previous song, Mr Wooster played Bach, the delicate prelude quickening under his fingertips and floating outward to fill the air of the church. His command of the music was masterful. There was no sheet music, but he missed no notes Jeeves could detect, instead making deft use of the pedals as well to draw out the sound.

Jeeves found that his eyes were closed. That he was smiling, faint but entirely unconsciously, unlike the usual polite mask his job required.

"Thank you, Mr Wooster. Should you wish to play that sort of music, you are welcome to borrow our instrument whenever it might suit."

Wooster accepted both the compliment and reproof with a grin. "Thank you, Father."

"And may I ask what brought you to your musical forays in the original instance?"

His fingers flicked at the corner of a music sheet. "Minor disagreement of the un-engagement sort. Churches being a traditional sanctuary, as it were, and I thought I might hide out for a decent interval, avoid a few of the old relation's guests. A spot of ivory-tickling seemed just the thing." Mr Wooster cast a wary look around, leaning off the bench to verify that both entrances stood open and empty. "If you should happen to see a tall mustached fellow with a walking stick rather in the manner of a troll wielding his billy club, could you give a chap a heads up?"

"You wouldn't happen to mean Sir Roderick Spode?"

"That's the chappy. Decent fellow, if you like ladies magazines, but a little hung up about ladies themselves, and he's got rather the wrong idea about me, and I should like to avoid him a bit longer until the immediate urge to re-arrange my facial features has worn off, as it were."

He raked a hand through his hair, and the resultant disarray made Jeeves wish he had a comb to hand.

"She's a cracking girl, she really is, only I've no desire to marry her, Father. I've never wanted to marry any of them. Between the law of averages, and that jolly unnerving saying about doing a thing, and doing it again- definition of madness, you know? Well, if the problem isn't them, well, then it must be me, mustn't it? Only I never thought I had a problem." He smiled. "Quite a few of my relatives might be happy to tell you any number of problems they've found, though. Aunt's are rather apt to know all one's problems before one's even finished having them."

Only parts of this speech were in any way edifying, but Jeeves was long adept at piecing together stories people preferred to elide.

"There's that whole wheeze about helping those who help themselves. Only I don't seem to be very good at that part? I wondered if that was why-" Wooster broke off, without finishing the thought, and even Jeeves' best sympathetic interrogative elicited only a bright, distracted smile.

A blustery presence made itself known in the vestibule, and Wooster dove beneath the piano. Jeeves regarded those ridiculous blue eyes and raised a finger to his lips, then gestured towards the side-door, accessible in concealment if one remained below the level of the pews.

He turned and made his way to the main doors. Exactly what Mr Wooster needed, he was not yet sure. Possibly he simply needed less interfering friends and aquaintences.

Or, from another tack, _more_ interfering ones. After all, it was Father Jeeves' Christian duty to aid those who came to him for help. 

Over Sir Roderick's shoulder, Father Jeeves watched Wooster's slight figure slip around the side doorway, and smiled.


End file.
